After criticism of the ‘casual racism’ of a story about a Chinese boy, the publisher has taken it out of the next print run of the bestselling anthology
David Walliams’ story about a Chinese boy called Brian Wong, which was criticised by campaigners for its “casual racism”, is set to be removed from future editions of his short story collection The World’s Worst Children.
Walliams’ bestselling anthology, which was published in 2016, was criticised earlier this year by the podcaster Georgie Ma over the Brian Wong story, which tells of a boy who was “never, ever wrong”, and who was a “total and utter swot”. “There are so many racist jokes on ESEA [East and Southeast Asian] community with the surname Wong and associating it with wrong,” Ma said on Instagram. “If David Walliams would have done his research, he would have known this.”